Deeplinks Blog posts about Coders' Rights Project

As the year draws to a close, EFF is looking back at the major trends influencing digital rights on 2011 and discussing where we are in the fight for free expression, innovation, fair use, and privacy.

Today mobile software company Carrier IQ withdrew (pdf) a bogus legal threat to a security researcher who published an analysis of the company's software, as well as training materials on which he based his research.

Last week, Trevor Eckhart published a detailed article pointing out that Carrier IQ's software logs a great deal of information about users' activities without their knowledge. Attempting to suppress his research, Carrier IQ fired off a baseless cease-and-desist demand (pdf) claiming that Eckhart infringed the company's copyrights and made "false allegations" about their software.

Last week, security researcher Trevor Eckhart posted an analysis of software produced by Carrier IQ, which describes itself as "the world's leading provider of Mobile Service Intelligence solutions." Eckhart concluded that the software, which comes by default on many mobile devices and runs quietly in the background, logs extensive details about users' activities. Eckhart not only documented the functionality of the software, but learned even more about how it works through training materials posted on the Carrier IQ website. Fearing the company would take the files offline after he posted his analysis, he mirrored the training materials to let others independently verify his conclusions.

In June, we filed an amicus brief urging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the troubling decision of a three judge panel in United States v. Nosal, which ruled that employees commit a crime anytime they use a work computer for purposes that violate a company's computer use policy.